Israel has put 200,000 Palestinians before military tribunals since 1990
MEMO | November 26, 2010
A report from the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs has claimed that 200,000 Palestinians have been tried by Israeli military tribunals since 1990. What the report describes as “unfair and arbitrary” trials in Israel have led to thousands of Palestinians languishing in the Zionist state’s prisons.
“Military court rooms surrounded by the fences of military bases have operated since the beginning of the Occupation shrouded in mystery,” said the report. “Journalists are prevented from attending the trials and so the proceedings are not reported.” The sentences passed in these courts don’t provoke any discussion or controversy inside Israel; neither the judicial nor academic communities take any interest, it added.
The military tribunals are, claims the report, the backbone of Israel’s occupation apparatus. The official and civic silence about the courts’ affairs strengthens the Israeli security forces by allowing violations of international law to occur with impunity. Israel’s military courts reject international law although the latter obliges occupying powers to implement its provisions.
Israeli soldiers beat and humiliate Salfit farmer
Ma’an | November 21, 2010
SALFIT — A Palestinian farmer said he was beaten by Israeli soldiers on Friday morning, after he asked them to open the agricultural gate and allow him access to his farm land in the northern West Bank village Az-Zawiya, west of Salfit.
Mu’taz Ribhi Abu Nab’a, 22, said the incident occurred at 11:30 a.m., as he waited to cross the gate to his land, on the far side of the separation barrier.
A force made up of men and women refused to let him through the gate. Instead, he said, soldiers beat him, strip-searched him and hand-cuffed him before transferring him to a military base.
Abu Nab’a further said that female soldiers humiliated him and took photos with him.
When he asked an Israeli officer why he was being beaten and humiliated, the young farmer said, he was told “Because you deliberately disturbed us and made us go to the gate early in the morning.” Abu Nab’a said the officer in charge then accused him of attempting to break down part of the barrier. The farmer said he denied the charge and informed the soldier that he knew there were monitoring cameras which would have documented him.
He also told the soldier he had a permit issued by Israeli authorities giving him permission to access his land.
According to Abu Nab’a, soldiers ultimately freed him in Hebron, more than 60 kilometers south of his home town, but only after he was served with a summons ordering him to go the Israeli intelligence office in Tulkarem on Monday for further interrogation.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said she could not look into the report without the Palestinian’s ID number.
Israel harbors fugitive wanted for war crimes in Colombia
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News – November 20, 2010
International fugitive, arms trader and death squad leader Yair Klein has arrived in Israel a free man, despite warrants for his arrest in Colombia for training the death squads of the notorious Medellin drug cartel.
Klein was captured in Russia and held in a Russian prison awaiting extradition to Colombia when Israeli authorities intervened to secure his release to Israel, where he will be harbored illegally by Israeli authorities.
The Israeli government has a history of harboring fugitives – one example is the case of US citizen Samuel Sheinbein, who brutally murdered and dismembered a man in the suburbs of Washington DC, then escaped to Israel in the late 1990s.
In Klein’s case, the evidence is substantial that he trained and assisted death squads in torture and murder techniques in Colombia. These death squads were part of the Medellin drug cartel, run by Pablo Escobar and Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha.
Klein has also worked as an international arms dealer, and served a sentence in Sierra Leone in 1999 for illegally smuggling weapons to right-wing guerrilla armies. This took place in the height of a brutal war over resources in which guerrillas recruited child soldiers and engaged in systematic chopping off of limbs of victims throughout Sierra Leone.
Dutch Film Director Accuses Ariel Sharon of Killing Two Palestinian Children in 1982
By Ane Irazabal – IMEMC & Agencies – November 19, 2010
George Sluizer declared that in 1982 he saw then Israeli defense minister Ariel Sharon shooting Palestinian children from near the Sabra-Shatilla refugee camp, Beirut, while he was filming a documentary. Israel officials called the report a ‘modern blood libel’.
The accusation was first made in Volkskrant, a Dutch newspaper, during an interview to George Sluizer, who was promoting the screening of his most recent film about Israel in the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam.
According to Sluizer, who has made several documentaries about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he saw Sharon killing two Palestinian children with a pistol in 1982, near the refugee camp Sabra-Shatilla in Lebanon. Sharon was an Israeli minister of defense at that time.
“Sharon shot two children like you shoot rabbits, in front of my eyes,” he added.
Sluizer gave more details and reported hat the children were two or three years old and that Sharon shot them from a distance of 10 meters with a pistol. However, he could not specify in which month the event occurred, but he thought it was in November.
Meanwhile, Israeli government’s officials have been quick to deny accusations, claiming that the statement is not supported by a single shred of evidence and that it is very cruel to accuse Sharon of committing a murder when he cannot defend himself, Haaretz reported.
“Firstly, Sharon would never shoot a child; secondly, he was not in Lebanon in November of 1982: and thirdly, protocol prohibits ministers from wearing weapons,” Sharon’s successor as defense minister, Moshe Arens, explained.
In an interview for Haaretz, Sluizer defended his statement and said that after seeing the shooting, he had complained against Sharon in the International Court of Justice in Hague and the European Court of Human Right in Strasbourg, in 1983.
However, Israeli officials pointed out that no evidences that support that complaint have been found and added that they have warned the Dutch magazine to be careful when publishing anything that is not corroborated.
Sharon is currently in a permanent vegetative state after suffering a stroke in January 2006.
Shin Bet Torture ‘Investigator’ Moved to Israeli Justice Department
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News – November 18, 2010
The Israeli secret service, or Shin Bet, has always depended on ‘internal investigations’ to respond to allegations of torture and mistreatment. Now, the Shin Bet officer in charge of complaints will be moved under the jurisdiction of the Justice Department.
Israeli activists demonstrate Shin Bet torture technique (photo by ‘Abolish Torture’)
The ‘internal investigations’ have, in 100% of cases, resulted in a dismissal of complaints, often with a single sentence reply to the complainant: “There is no basis for the complaints in your letter.” The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel recently released a report showing that every single one of the 650 complaints brought to the Israeli government’s legal advisors were dismissed out of hand.
After the report’s release, Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein announced that he will move the employee who deals with complaints from within the Shin Bet to the Justice Department for “the sake of appearances”.
According to the Attorney General’s office, it is unlikely that the shift in jurisdiction will result in any actual change in how ‘investigations’ of complaints are conducted.
The Shin Bet has a reputation among Israeli military branches for harsh interrogation and torture of prisoners. Palestinians who have been abducted by the Shin Bet report horrific techniques used by the Shin Bet officers during interrogations, and officers within the organization have publicly admitted their use of certain techniques including the so-called ‘Palestinian hanging’, in which prisoners are hung by their handcuffed hands from a wall.
Despite the violations of international law and human rights conventions, Shin Bet officers continue to authorize the use of torture against Palestinian prisoners, including children, on a regular basis.
‘I am strong. We resist’: An interview in the village of Jeb al Theeb
By The volunteers of the Harvesting Peace Project | Mondoweiss | November 18, 2010
Sitting in one of the houses of Jeb al Theeb, a small village south of Bethlehem, a Palestinian woman describes the living conditions. She is a teacher but in the darkness it is difficult to determine her age. Her home, just as the entire village, is without electricity. The only light that arrives comes from the mega-illumination of the adjacent settlements of El David, Nokdim, and Sde bar.
Can you tell us more about life here in the village?
Jeb al Theeb is a simple Palestinian village inhabited by 150 people, most of whom are young. We don’t have many older people here. The village lacks all types of basic infrastructure and the only roads are unsuitable for cars, forcing the people to travel on foot. There is no school, the children must walk a long way to the nearest one, even in winter with the rains. We no longer have access to our land, shepherds cannot graze their sheep in the pastures and children cannot play in the fields. We have no electricity and therefore cannot use computers or television. The children are unable to study after school, and, as you can see, at 5pm it is already dark. Studying by candlelight creates problems with their eyesight.
A settler and the village of Jeb al Theeb in the background
We’re staying in a house nearby and we have electricity, as do other homes in the area. Why don’t you have it here?
The houses a little further away from the settlements are supplied with electricity simply because they do not represent a direct threat. Our village, on the other hand, is located right next to the Israeli settlements, whose strategy is clearly to deny us electricity as well as other basic necessities.
In addition to electricity, what other basic necessities are you denied?
They often shut off the water and also damage the pipes, which creates many difficulties for us. Water is already scarce here, then we are forced to ration what little we have stored in tanks.
Who do you call when there are problems with the water?
We are located in Area C, so we have no choice but to call the Israelis. They come but they do nothing, nothing ever changes. We have no faith in the Israeli authorities.
In recent months there has been much talk of construction and expansion of the settlements. Are you allowed to build?
Absolutely not. In addition to not being allowed to build or even complete work already begun, houses are demolished by the Israeli authorities. My brother’s house was destroyed.
The other day we saw a settler in a pickup truck enter the village. Do they come here often?
It is as if they live here. They do what they want, when they want.
Do they come to intimidate you? To scare you? To provoke you?
They come for all these reasons. Just the other day, as I walked to work early in the morning, I saw a settler turn a hundred of his goats on the olive trees belonging to a man near the village. The day before, that same man had defended his right to access his lands. The goats damaged both the trees and the olives.
Abu Yassir, a villager in Jeb al Theeb who was attacked by a settler.
We’ve noticed that the settlers are armed. Do they ever attack people in the village?
Unfortunately, yes. One of the most serious cases was that of this elderly man beside me who was beaten with a stick and hit with stones for nothing more than attempting to graze his sheep on his land. As you can see, he suffered a deep wound to the head. He received no immediate treatment due to the isolation of the village. It was only later that he was taken to the hospital in Ramallah where he underwent surgery. Fortunately, he recovered fully.
Was the settler who attacked him prosecuted?
We called the Israeli authorities. They came and wrote a report of the incident, but they did not take any action. It is clear that there is collaboration between the settlers and the Israeli forces.
When was it that your village began to have problems?
More or less 15 years ago when they started to build settlements. As a child I remember playing in the fields, there were flowers in the spring.
How exactly were you informed that you could no longer access your land?
They came to us presenting an official government document, according to which, from that moment on, we were not allowed to enter our lands. The same document gave the settlers the right to shoot anyone who tried. They communicated this to us in person.
Who brought you the document? The IDF soldiers?
No.
The Israeli civil authorities?
No, it was the settlers themselves. As you know, they receive orders from above. The government also provides them with a series of incentives that help them economically. They have sheep, tractors, horses and camels, they have everything.
Now that you can no longer access your land, what is its current status?
I think the settlers go there to take our olives. They certainly take their sheep there to graze, and they eat the leaves and the olives off the trees.
What is that large metal building we see a few hundred meters from here?
It is a plant producing fertilizer that was built two years ago. As you may have noticed it also produces a horrible smell not to mention the fumes coming from its smokestacks. We shut the windows and doors to our houses but the smoke still gets in. Furthermore, it is dealing with chemical substances that cause serious health problems, especially for our children.
Do you think is was located here on purpose?
Maybe. One thing is certain, they don’t not care about us. They just want us to leave and will be happy when we do so.
And have people left the village?
As you can see, there are many houses that have been abandoned by their owners who were tired of the continual harassment and hardships they endured. Life here is impossible. How can it be that in the 21st century we are forced to live without electricity? We don’t have internet, we cannot send email, children cannot watch cartoons on TV.
But I’m not leaving. I could certainly have a more comfortable life elsewhere, but this is where my family is, this is my land. I remain also to keep hope alive.
I am strong. We resist.
Interview by the volunteers of the Harvesting Peace Project
Harvesting Peace is an Italian civilian peace intervention project in Palestine to support the olive harvest and the work of Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (www.popularstruggle.org). The project is promoted by Service Civil International – Italy, Association for Peace and Un Ponte Per. Volunteers provide international accompaniment for four weeks in the village of Jeb al Theeb near Bethlehem, under threat from the nearby illegal settlements and settlers.
http://raccogliendolapace.wordpress.com/
Israeli Police Commander To TV News Director: ‘We Know Where You Live, Will Lie In Wait For You’
Israel is a democracy, right? That’s what all the press releases say, don’t they? But I wonder how those who praise said democracy to the skies manage to reconcile that with horror stories like the ones I’m about the recount.
Israel’s Channel 10 News ran a series on police violence and abuse. It featured incidents between citizens and police officers which escalated into extreme violence. Before it aired the national deputy police commander called the news director, Reudor Benziman, and threatened him and his staff with violence if it wasn’t cancelled. In fact, this very threat should be investigated as a violation of the law. When Benziman declined, the officer bellowed:
We too can act against you. We know where your studios are and your personal vehicles and we can [lie in] wait for you.
The police also refused to provide any statistics to the station for its report including the number of complaints filed and those found to be justified (presumably this is publicly accessible information required to be made available by the police–which would make the refusal an act of mere petulance). Local police commanders also routinely refuse to allow access to any of the Channel’s reporters.
Lest you doubt the level of violence of which these people are capable, listen to the police “explanation” of its behavior:
It’s already been a half-year since the Channel began a shameful, partisan campaign to recruit citizens and amass material against those who uphold the law. The fantastical complaints raised by the news reports of alleged threats [by the police] reflect the level of journalistic integrity of the entire project…
Israeli police officers receive the unconditional backing of the national command for the full-fledged use of force as permitted by law. In a nation that functions properly, the law-abiding citizenry stands beside its police and not against them.
This reminds me so well of the response by Dick Cheney to the civil liberties whiners who complained about the civil liberties violations brought on by the USA Patriot Act: no one who obeys the law has anything to worry about; only those who break the law will be affected by it. Except that didn’t turn out to be true and never does in a police state. The innocent are as likely to be dredged up from the sea bottom as the guilty. And the innocent are treated no differently than the guilty. In fact, because of the presumption of guilt in such cases, the innocent find it difficult, if not impossible to prove their innocence.
You’ll notice in the passage quoted above that the police have stabbed two targets at once. They’ve smeared the Israeli media as being not only their enemy, but in effect an enemy of the state (because who do the police represent if not the state?). Alongside the media, those citizens who register complaints against the police are in effect on the side of criminals (and certainly little better than them).
The sentiment above is confirmed by this Haaretz report on a Knesset hearing at which the boss of the police bully above testified about the record of police abuse and violence against the said citizenry:
Police Commissioner David Cohen…appearing before the State Control Committee, spent much of the meeting speaking out against critics that have alleged a pattern of abuses by the Israel Police. He said the organization “works with its head, not with its hands.”
…The police commissioner expressed outrage that citizens who have complained of police violence were allowed to attend the meeting, saying “they shouldn’t be here.” Committee chairman MK Yoel Hasson told Cohen they could not be barred from attending.
This is the nation’s top police officer appointed, as one of my Israel apologist commenters tutored me recently, by democratically-elected representatives, who himself doesn’t believe in democracy. The state police chief believes no citizens who complain about the police should be allowed to attend a public hearing about the police. Once again, he feels these citizens are offenders who should be barred and that their very complaints are an act of disloyalty against the police and by extension, the state. Apparently, the only citizens who should be allowed to scrutinize the police are those who approve of the job he’s doing. As the old song lyrics go: “Nice work if you can get it.”
As I wrote here recently, the police are a state unto themselves. They run roughshod over those they are sworn to protect. They face virtually no public control as this salient passage from the Haaretz story reveals:
The Justice Ministry has never run an internal inquiry into the operation of the department, according to presenters at the meeting. The State Comptroller’s office looked into the department’s work in 2005…
The Israeli equivalent of the U.S. Justice Department has never run an internal inquiry into the actions of the national police force. The State Comptroller last reviewed its work five years ago. Think about that. Who polices the police? In Israel? No one. Just as no one polices the intelligence agencies nor the IDF. Which is why the claim that Israel is a democracy is so completely divorced from the everyday reality. When you are an Israeli and you encounter naked police power and aggression you might as well be walking down a Mississippi highway in the dark circa 1962. They will do with you what they will. And you will thank them for it. If not, you might end up wedged in an Israeli equivalent of an earthen dam.
UK to pay ex-Guantanamo detainees
Minister says former inmates who accused UK security forces of complicity in their torture will receive compensation
Al-Jazeera – 16 Nov 2010
The British government is to compensate former detainees in the Guantanamo Bay military detention facility in Cuba who accused UK security forces of being complicit in their torture overseas.
Ken Clarke, the British justice minister, said on Tuesday that the government had “agreed a mediated settlement of the civil damages claims” but that the details would remain confidential.
“No admissions of culpability have been made in settling these cases nor have any of the claimants withdrawn their allegations,” he added.
It is believed that the government decided it was better to settle with compensation rather than risk the release of secret documents during any open court case.
Media reports suggested that the claims could see one prisoner receive more than $1.6m.
The move comes after former detainees Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil el Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes, Binyam Mohamed, Martin Mubanga all took action against the government, and the High Court ordered the release of 500,000 related documents in July.
In February, a British court released secret evidence that Mohamed, an Ethiopian-born resident of Britain, had been subjected to “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment during questioning by US
agents.
Experts have said the government was keen to avoid a costly court case and the settlement was finally agreed after weeks of negotiations, with two lawyers acting as independent adjudicators.
Paul Brennan, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in London, said that details of the settlement will “probably never be known”.
“It is going to be an intrinsic part of the agreement, we understand, that there will be confidentiality,” he said.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of campaign group Liberty, said news of the compensation was “not very palatable but there is a price to be paid for lawlessness and torture in freedom’s name.
“There are torture victims who were entitled to expect protection from their country.
“The government now accepts that torture is never justified and we were all let down – let’s learn all the lessons and move on,” she said.
In July this year David Cameron, the prime minister, announced an inquiry into claims that UK security services were complicit in the torture of suspects on foreign soil after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The inquiry is due to start before the end of 2010 and is expected to report within 12 months.
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From the Archives
A sample of vaccine and injectable medication tragedies during my lifetime
This is what happens when you demand speedy production in an era of politicized regulation
By Meryl Nass, MD | February 12, 2022
All these tragedies have been due to failures of testing or failures in manufacturing processes. Most occurred before vaccine manufacturers were given virtually complete protection from liability in 1987.
With the duration of patent exclusivity determining how much new products earn, products are rushed to market as quickly as possible, most using a shortened path for FDA review. Recalls and market removals of approved products are much more common than they used to be. We can only expect more of these disasters in the future, especially if the products are mandated for everyone. … continue
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